Lady Gregory, in talking to the workhouse folk in Ireland, was moved by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the splendours of the tale.
She says: “The stories they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors, and of lovers' flight on the backs of eagles, and music-loving witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for 700 years.”
I fear it is only the Celtic imagination that will glory in such romantic material; but I am sure the men and women of the poorhouse are much more interested than we are apt to think in stories outside the small circle of their lives.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] With regard to the right moment for choosing this kind of story, I shall return to the subject in a later chapter.
[3] I venture to hope (at this long distance of years) that my language in telling the story was more simple than appears from this account.
[4] This difference of spelling in the same essay will be much appreciated by those who know how gladly children offer an orthographical alternative, in hopes that one if not the other may satisfy the exigency of the situation.
[5] I refer, of course, to the Irish in their native atmosphere.
[7] This was at the Congressional Library at Washington.